Letter: Dogmatism, not skepticism about climate

Monday

Jan 13, 2014 at 10:58 PMJan 13, 2014 at 10:58 PM

This is a response to Mathew Hurwitz's letter, Sunday, Jan. 5 ("A climate change skeptic responds").The author claims to be a "skeptic" of climate change and claims that the so-called "dogmatic cultists" are "resistant to any rational debate." From the tone and content of the letter quite the opposite is true.Mr. Hurwitz is not a skeptic because he is not willing to learn some basic physics and climate science. When he starts using phrases like "unproven CO2 greenhouse theories" he is no longer a skeptic but a dogmatist, i.e. "a viewpoint or system of ideas based on insufficiently examined premises" (Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary). All true climate skeptics have accepted the greenhouse affect. The major contention is how the earth-climate system will respond to the addition of man-made greenhouse gases. Simple climate models based on sound physics clearly show that increasing those gases will increase the global average temperature. AND most important the evidence from ice cores shows the clear relationship between the level of greenhouse gases and global average temperature.But most important, Mr. Hurwitz is not a skeptic because he is not willing to reevaluate the evidence on an ongoing basis. Take for example, his claim that "Satellite data show: there has been no warming in the past 17 years..." The conclusions from that early work have been discredited because of inconsistencies in the data and the period being too short. Did he take the time to follow up on that claim?MARTIN KNAPP-CORDESFramingham

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